A compilation of daily news articles from around the United States about deaths (including both people and animals) that appear to occur in the context of a past or present intimate relationship, focusing on 2009-present. (NOTE: this blog is limited to incidents that appear in the media and are captured by our search terms. We recognize this is not an exhaustive portrayal of all deaths resulting from intimate violence.)
When is society going to realize intimate violence makes victims of us all?

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Lawyers for Renato Seabra, the hunky Portuguese model who was found
guilty this week of stomping his boyfriend to death two years ago,
castrating him with a corkscrew and then wearing his testicles like
bracelets, offered a bevy of unuexpected defense theories during the
trail, including that he was so "tortured" by his romance with much
older, renown journalist and LGBT activist Carlos Antonio De Castro that
he wore the victim's testicles like bracelets on his wrists to
"harness" their power and extract the "virus" of homosexuality as
ordered by God.

After the murder, prosecutors said, Seabra took a shower and took more than $1,500 from Castro's wallet before he left the room.

On Friday, CNN reports,
a jury convicted Seabra of second-degree murder of Castro, which took
place in January 2011 in a hotel room at the InterContinental Hotel room
in New York City.

Cyrus R. Vance Jr., Manhattan district attorney, told reporters after
the verdict that the crime was both "brutal and sadistic...But the
jury's verdict now, finally, holds Seabra accountable. It is
particularly tragic that Carlos Castro was not only ... betrayed by his
spurned lover, but met a very painful and violent end far from his
home."

The two had been in the U.S. only a couple of weeks. Castro was a TV jounalist and a gossip columnist for the Correio da Manha newspaper, both in Portugal, and Seabra (who prosecutors called a "gold digger") appeared on a Portugese reality TV series A Procura deum Sonho.

Castro allegedly flew the young man to the U.S. from Portugal to meet
with model agents in New York but the two began to fight after Seabra
was caught hooking up with women and telling Castro that he was no
longer gay, according to the New York Daily News' Janon Fisher. Castro reportedly booked his lover an early flight home the night he was killed.